Ripples
by GrinGrin
Summary: Dr. Banner always appears calm, serene. What if there were ripples under the surface?


_I do not own The Avengers or Marvel in any shape or form._

**Ripples**

_Leave. Just go. Please, leave me alone. You took away my safety, my silence, brought me here. This place of madness and instability, how many thousands of feet up in the air. He's gonna come out, and you're going to die and I'm going to have to pick up the pieces. Again._

He grits his teeth, hiding it as a small grin. Wrinkles in the corner of his eyes are from laughter, not eyes narrowed in fury. Of course not. Everyone knew what happened if the esteemed doctor got miffed. Things broke. People broke.

He'd done the calculations in those scare periods of rest he got. If He was let loose in this cage of fragile metal and glass, nothing was going to be able to stop Him. He'd break their hubris, shatter their headquarters, scatter them to the four winds. No hesitation, no mercy.

_That won't hold Him. That little cage? It would work for just about everything, but not that. Never that. How could they even think that? They knew what could happen. Hell, they're expecting it. Why keep him here then? Why? Why take that risk? Foolish, stupid, ignorant. He could do his work from anywhere on the planet, but no… he had to be guarded, put on a leash…_

He'd seen her reaction, back in India. Just a frown and a scare, and she'd been ready to call in everything. Bah. Like it would make a difference. So caught up in their clever little machinations.

Fury, who thinks he can control everything, that life owes him something.

Hill, who thinks she has power over the heaven and earth.

Stark, arrogant bastard that he is.

Plans within plans within plans.

And all useless. He'd done the calculations. It was literally _im-fucking-possible_ for the Hulk to be able to generate so much energy, given his biomass. Which was yet another thing. Where did that mass come from? There wasn't even the possibility of having as much weight in his 'normal' form.

Did the monster even power through the laws of the universe? What was wrong with him? Everything he knows denies the reality he experienced. Radiation didn't do things like that. How could they hope to stop something that literally spat in the face of all known laws of the universe?

_Gah. Screw it. After I'm done here, there'll be enough time to finish my research._

* * *

And they wouldn't warn him. Of course not.

The staff was scratching at his mind. He could feel it, just like he could always feel that ocean of boiling anger. It was cold, brushing relentlessly against his thoughts.

_Just pick it up._

_Just a touch._

_What harm could it do?_

Gah. He had one voice to many already. If you could call screams of rage a voice. Ah well.

If nothing else, he had enough control to block it out. The almost gentle pressure it put on his mind was nothing compared to the effort of keeping his – sometimes literally – explosive anger in check.

But god's above and below. If these _children_ would just stop bickering. Pride had no place here.

And that was the crux of that matter. Pride. Everyone was so sure he knew best. It was disgusting. Just like children, squabbling over something they don't even comprehend, let alone value.

But he had to bear it and smile, play the fool and hope he'd get away without reaching that tipping point…

And in between the arguments and accusations, the pure ignorance and vanity, even that thought slipped away.

* * *

It was in his mind. Deeper than he thought. It wasn't going after him, it never was. It was aiming for Him from the beginning. He'd thought the others were guilty of hubris? What a joke.

In his struggles, writhing on the deck, he let loose a fierce grin. The irony was so bitter it was almost tasteful. Of course it would happen to him. Why not? Pride came before a fall.

Fuck it all. The line between calming the monster and becoming it was blurring again. The wildfire sung in his veins and his heartbeat _SURGED_ and he could hear the clothes ripping and the creak as his skull expanded and –

…

…

he woke up in a crater, naked as the day he was born.

He sighed, and let his head fall backward onto the rubble.

Just another day.

* * *

AN: Damn it all. Plot bunnies.

Anyway, I might come back and hammer this into coherency.

Still, I might as well attempt to explain my weird-ass train of thought. Essentially, it boils down to two points. One – Bruce admits he's always angry… That's rather dangerous. Point two – the staff can affect minds. Hence the really-out-of-character scene where Bruce picked it up, knowing what it could do.

*facepalm* I'm gonna post this anyway, just to get rid of it, so yeah… my apologies.

Read, (maybe) enjoy and review.

~GrinGrin

Written: 07/06/2014

Posted: 07/06/2014


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